[Oranda Megane no-e].

Japanese scroll - views of Holland.

About this Item

n.p. n.d. (18th or early 19th century). 245x29cm, ink and colour on paper. Blank lead in stained and chewed with stains along, and a piece from, the bottom edge of the first view; rumpled. Five scenes each 38cm wide with blank spaces joined between each. This is what anglophones like me, with characteristic sensitivity, used to call Chinese whispers. I've chosen to call this scroll Dutch whispers: a perfect example of a landscape imagined from second hand - at best - reports. No-one in direct contact with a Dutch trader in Nagasaki would have able to walk away with these views uncorrected. Perhaps more telling is that our artist had scant access to European engravings which were being passed around select circles by the end of the 18th century. They may have seen late 16th century Japanese paintings of the Portugese or those breeches were passed down as oral history. Our artist never got near Nagasaki, saw anyone Dutch, or knew anyone who had.Oranda Megane literally translates as Hollander glasses or spectacles, no-e just means picture. So does this mean that the viewer can see the world as the Dutch see it?This is no child's drawing. Neither is it the work of a great artist. But it is by someone who was, at least, well trained with a brush. Often reports and drawings of foreign doings were recorded and copied by scribes for circulation among officials and the well connected. But any educated person was expert with a brush. This looks more personal, maybe even fun give the possibly poetic title, than anything official. It has the essentials: dikes and canals, windmills, massed colonades, multi storey buildings and tall chimneys . too many hills and mountains but how could any Japanese picture somewhere as flat as Holland? So a fair bit of detail, all the important stuff, has been gathered, digested and incorporated into these views of the Dutch home planet.

Seller Inventory # 11290

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [Oranda Megane no-e].
• Condition: very good